Summer squash questions

Summer squash questions

Fri Apr 02, 2010 1:10 pm

I'm doing square foot gardening, and have read that I'll need 9 sq. ft. to do summer squash. I can't seem to find out how many *plants* go in those 9 squares; what i read makes it sound like *one* plant needs 9 squares. Can someone confirm?

Also, thinking of trellising them. I have old pallets and I'd like to turn them into a sort of mini saw horse design, with cotton string as netting for the trellis. How tall should the little pseudo-saw horses be?

I grow summer squash and the huge leaves and long vine do require a lot of space. Recommended space is probably 9' per plant. I don't do that. I tend to do it more the way you are thinking. 4' tall saw horses would probably work well because they can grow up one side and down the other. I've never investigated it, but I think some varieties grow big without vining so much. Last year, I grew tomatoes in the center of my raised beds in cages with squash around the edges. When the squash vines started to get long, I simply made a loop in one end of a rope and lifted my vines to the top of my tomato cages and then let them grow down from the rope. I think the saw horses will work better.

While they do vine, I don't think trellising will work because they don't seem to put out the little tendrils like cucumber vines to hold onto something. I think the saw horse design should 3' to 4' tall. That will give you a length to grow up and the same length to grow down.

There are a couple of varieties of summer squash that only have vines about 2 feet long. If that is what you are planting, I would plant 4 seeds and if they all come up take out the wimp leaving the three best plants.

If you plant regular summer squash, you will need 35-40 square feet - a 6 foot by 6 foot space and plant 5 seeds. Space the seeds about 5 inches. They can all grow. The vines on these get up to 4 feet long, and I don't think they will climb.

I don't have a lot of experience with summer squash but I've always planted them. Most years I just considered them a sacrificial plant to the squash vine borers and powdery mildew. That sacrifice usually occurred before I got the first fruit. About three years ago, I started growing a Burpee hybrid seed called "Pic & Pic" which seemed to not be so susceptible to vine borers and mildew. Each plant would put out a single vine which kept producing blossoms and fruit at the terminal end of the vine. The vines would exceed six feet in length and need to be lifted from the ground by some method. This year, I have devoted my old tomato beds to onions and squash. I am growing a few Pic & Pic as well as a couple of other varieties. I'm hoping, and I will check later to see if the other varieties are bush type plants. That would be nice.

Last year when I did Summer Squash (Yellow Crooked Neck) I went with seedlings from "Bonney" that I got at a Walmart. They were 3 to a pot, and grew out to an average of six or eight feet in diameter per hill.

It makes sense to me to space them a bit apart so the roots don't compete but I never thought to raise them up. They're growing on black plastic this year, in hopes of not having anymore weeds in a few more seasons.

This year I'm going right from seeds. I set an entire patch out already, but they got clobbered by weather. A shame too - they were seedlings I started a few weeks ago and were really looking good.

Between a late cold snap, and rain coming down by the bucketful they didn't have much chance. If I hadn't already re-seeded directly outdoors I think I'd try that spacing scheme, but then I can always add a few more later. There's a total of eight hills of them out there, waiting for sprouts to come up.

That same 10' by 50' patch has three hills of zuchini interspersed with them.

Le Revanchist du Finances

There is no such thing as a "STUPID QUESTION"~ Unless you or I fail to ask it in time...

If by summer squash you mean zucchini, then you may be able to find some compact, bush-type plants which will work out well. I've found mine to take up about a 3ft. x 3ft. space when grown on a mound.

If I'm talking about something other than what you are referring to, then sorry about the useless info . But still look to see if you can find some bush-varieties of your summer squash; they take up less space.

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